February, Craft A Scene Design Team - My Favourite Technique 1

As a member of the Design Team for Craft A Scene, this month gives me the chance to really enjoy using my favourite techniques, and hopefully show that you do not need masses of equipment to create different cards.  I used these stamps a while back to create a totally different card and to see that one, just follow this link  Clarity Challenge No 1 - March 

Before you enter any challenge, the most important thing to do is to ensure that your beautiful creation will comply with the rules of that particular challenge.  For Craft A Scene, you need to think carefully and create a proper scene, with a background and a foreground.  I love colouring stamps of beautiful flowers, but that does not make a scene unless I put it into a proper background.  Look around you outside and work with the kind of thing you can see. The main thing is to read the rules.

I thought it might be helpful for some people if I did photos as well as descriptions to explain what I did for this card.

Ingredients

Plain white card

Adirondack Ink Pads - Cloudy Blue, Stonewashed, Juniper, Pitch Black

Clarity Stamps - Sprucescape, cabin, small spruce tree

SplodgeAway Mat

Make up sponge

Brayer

Wink of Stella - clear 

The trees at the top are one stamp, stamped twice.  They fit so well together and you could create quite a forest if you wanted.  I put those in first , using Pitch Black, and then place the cabin.  Then the small spruce went in around the cabin.  That is all the stamping required for this one.

Then, I used the brayer with Adirondack Juniper to colour over the whole picture, sky and all.  Juniper is a very pale green and acts as a very good base for other colours.  I wanted to tone down the stark whiteness of the card.

Then I used the brayer with Cloudy Blue and loaded the SplodgeAway Mat with it.  To brayer successfully and avoid stripes, you always need to have the leading edge of the brayer completely clear of ink.  Remembering that I have put it upside down on its cradle, notice that the leading edge is clean.  Then you come in with it at the top corner, starting off the card and gradually working in.  You may need to go back to the mat to reload the brayer, again coming in with that clean edge.  Always start with pale colour, you can always add more but you cannot take it away.

From the Cloudy Blue, I went to a darker blue, which should have been Stonewashed, but mine was dry and useless, so I found another dye based blue from a Big and Juicy pad, which is why all the ink is at the one end of the brayer to avoid contaminating the leading edge.  I followed the same routine as before, coming in from the same corner, to build up the depth of colour.

I wanted it still darker so I added a tiny bit of black to the Splodge Mat, and then applied it to that same corner.

Once that sky was as I wanted, the brayer went away.  You could do all that I have done so far using the make up sponge or even a make up brush.  It is your choice.

Now it is time to add the things that make it a scene, the shading and shadows to "ground" the trees and cabin.  Take a piece of cheap copy paper and tear it down the long way to give you a curvy shape.  Now choose whichever shape you prefer and use it to make your hills.

You need to look for wherever you think a shadow would be or the best place to position your slopes.  It will be different for you according to how you have placed your stamps. One thing to remember is that your hill lines must not cross over each other.  Look at hills around you to get ideas.

Then you take your make up sponge, squeeze it into a mushroom shape and then brush the blue ink left on the Splodge Away mat from the copy paper up onto your card.  Again, start pale and add as you need.  You can take a sneaky peak to check how it is going but do not move the paper completely until you are happy, then move it to a slightly different position and repeat the process. 

You can see here how you gradually build up your shadows to create your landscape.

The position of your stamps will tell you where to put your shading.

It is just to give a bit of depth to your scene in a very simple way.

 

Don't forget to "ground" your cabin, too.  It might be rather unstable if it is floating in mid air.   I also added a little gentle sparkle with one of my new goodies, a clear Wink of Stella.  Of course, as usual it does not really show up on the photos, but it is just a hint following the lines of shade.

Mounting it as a card is really up to you, however you think it looks good.  I had a piece of white pearlescent card and a dark blue pearlescent card.  The white was too stark against the blues on the topper, so I just used what was left of the blue to brush over the edges of the white to tone it down.

I hope you like this.  Although it is a long post, the card was actually completed in just over an hour and with minimal equipment.  If you decide to have a go at something similar with whatever stamps you have, please let me know and show yours.

Now it is definitely your turn to create a card for February's challenge on Craft a Scene  which is to use your favourite technique.

Do remember the main rule, though, which is that you must have a foreground, and a background to create a real scene.  To make sure you follow the rules, do please go to the page on the Craft A Scene blog site.

Then, have fun and show us how you enjoy scene making.

Google has been having fun too